


Shadows of the Hive

by Araceil



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Alien Culture, Alien Genders, Alien Organised Crime, Alien Politics, Aliens, Animal Abuse, Asexuality, Badass Women In Charge, Body Modification, Criminal Politics, DO NOT COPY, Disabilities in Space, Do not repost, Drama, F/F, F/M, Family, Found Family, Gender Non-conforming Characters, Humans are space orcs, M/M, Multi, Our Hutts are prettier than Yours, PTSD, Prostitution, Romance, Science Fiction, Slavery, The future is not a Utopia, Unexplained Science, Unreliable Narrator, Worldbuilding, accidental interspecies lesbians, accidental interspecies motherhood, animal fighting, humans are from a death world, humans are smol and full of FITE ME, incorrect science, more tags to be added later, no betas we die like men, no reposting, non-humanoid aliens, pit fighting, space mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 10:04:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21097676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araceil/pseuds/Araceil
Summary: Shai has been taking care of herself for decades, been fighting for decades. She has clawed her way to the top and made something of herself despite all the odds, but now, with an invitation to fight at the Hive's Culling Blood Tournament, this could make or break her. It could make or break her patron, Krysta'aniie, scorned fourth wife of Crime Lord Vinso'krrak, and risk sending the entire Lightweaver Clan into a boiling riot as her appointment to the Hive would throw all of the Red Matriarch's careful manoeuvring and sabotage of her rival wives into disarray.On top of that, schemes and shadows buzz within the twisted pipes and burrows of the Hive, and more danger than just her patron's backstabbing rivals stalk the streets. For Shai and her neural linked fighting beast, Duo, it is beginning to look like they might be safer IN the Tournament than on the streets. But not by much.





	Shadows of the Hive

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Tom, who rolled the most important die of the story. And to my dad, who didn't let me finish my list of genres I had ideas for as soon as I said Sci-fi.

The scent of blood was thick in the air again.

She flicked her tongue out, inhaling the thick sticky delicious smell deeply, acid pooling hungrily in her mouth.

Scaled and hot, a dry musk, definitely male. Young, but not _too_ young. But clearly weak. A Paca Lizard, the voice in her head reminded her. They were from far, far away, on the outer-rim of the Pegasus galaxy, in the desert worlds between the Helix Stars. Larger but slower than her. Their scales were thick and armoured, buffed by the desert winds to slick flawless smoothness. But they had soft underarms, and that was where her claws would find them. Yes. But she had to be careful to avoid their jaws. They did not spit acid as she did, but their venom could burn through her flesh just as easily.

There was a breath of air, the scent was thicker now and she opened her mouth wide to catch more of it, to

CLICK

[“**GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING KIT'AANI STATION TOWER ELEVEN!!**”]

Shai jerked in her sleep, choking as the radio announcer jarred her out of confusing dreams of dead Paca Lizards and blood in the air.

[“**It's an easy breezy three in the FSP, we're looking at minimal solar radiation levels today according to my friends over in the Climate Control Centre. Only four valorens instead of the standard eight – but it looks to _increase_ by two SSP, so I wouldn't go taking your secondary shields outta your bags just yet, haha!**”]

Ugh.

Did tower eleven _have_ to have the chirpiest broadcaster on the station?

She squirmed in her bedding, the faint blinking green light of her clock overhead telling her it was nine past the dark hour, hour three of the First Solar Pass. She stretched out and took a lazy moment to listen to the broadcaster as they happily talked about a six speeder crash in the hover lanes at the tenth level of Violet and Six junction, and how the scavs down in the Darks were going to have the best day of the month with all the parts that were practically raining down on their heads from it. Meanwhile Violet and Six was going to be shut down levels six through to thirteen, making the public transport system delayed.

Shai kicked her legs out and down, swinging her ceiling store bed from horizontal to vertical, sliding both herself and her copious amounts of bedding onto the floor of her absolutely tiny apartment in the Blacks.

[“** – latest release from the Hive!**”]

She paused, mid-yawn, blankets in hand, to stare incredulously at the speakers attached to her bed.

The _Hive?_ Really? No one in the YUEI-00014 system had heard from them in about.... well, she couldn't even begin to calculate it. Her birth station used the old Earth Calendar as most everyone was human. Three hundred and sixty five days a year, twenty hour hours in a day, sixty minutes in an hour, sixty seconds in a minute. But YUEI-00014 used Segmentum Andromeda Galactic Standard, one that she had never managed to get her head around. Like many, she had never gained any kind of formal education before washing up on the ship docks here at Kit'aani. They were literally on the edge of the void here, not a _big_ void, just one between galactic spurs. They were only a handful of lightyears beneath one of the more well used trade routes throughout the whole segmentum – it made them a major smuggling port, but compared to the _Hive_....

The Hive was like.... the centre of illegal civilisation in Andromeda. You didn't live or work there without being either _owned_, or _owning_ enough lippi to buy a solar system. Their black markets were beyond legendary!

She waited for more information, but it didn't seem like anything else was going to be said as the broadcaster bade them all goodbye until four FSP.

Grumbling about idiots who didn't bother to repeat themselves for those who had just woken up, she kicked her bed back up into the ceiling, the hinges pulling it back up with a hiss and a click, as she grumpily kicked her pile of blankets into a corner out of the way. Her apartment was one of the few human specialised buildings on the station, tiny even for a single woman on her own. Ceiling bed, a single 'window' which was really a UV sunlamp keyed to the right level of warmth and radiation for her species with a programmable screen to give her a different view or intensity depending on preference or her biological clock. The back wall had a basic food dispenser with six different flavours of paste, a cupboard of spices to give her a few _more_ flavours, and an en-suite sani.

Human sani rooms varied from station to ship to planet depending on how much lippi you paid for rent. She wasn't _quite_ down in the Darks, but it was close enough that her toilet was a chemical incinerator, and her hygiene pod was powder, sonic, and a hand-held brush vacuum. For those who could afford it, water sanis were the height of luxury for station and shipborn humans. It was less so on planets, but also more _dangerous_ on planets. There was no telling if the water was human safe, or whether the filters on the plumbing could _make it_ so.

Either way, Shai was quick in her morning routine as usual. Dragging the brush across her head she shook off the last of the scented cleaning powder from her thankfully short hair and then blasted herself off with the sonic to remove the last traces before going to dress. She didn't think she could tolerate having long hair with a powder sani, not to mention with her job, having her hair the few inches she already had it was dangerous enough, having it below her jaw was just.... no. She may not like living, but she was going to keep doing so out of sheer fucking spite at this point.

Hmm.... Only four valorens.... Humans could handle that as standard without shielding, but YUEI-00014 could have valorens ranging from two to _thirty_-two – which would be lethal to almost every sapient save the San and the Vice'ii, both of which were sapients that evolved in the hard vacuum of space and thus able to handle almost all forms of solar radiation.

She could get away with a lightweight undersuit, but she would make sure to keep a hardlight shield on her. She threw on her usual dark clothing, vest, trousers, and over it her one true fashion indulgence: an armoured leather jacket made of _actual_ leather. She didn't know what _creature_ it was made out of, but thinking about when and where she bought it, she had a fair idea given what she had fought in the pit a week before hand.

Almost four FSP. She had best start moving if she wanted to get to Krysta's on time.

No doubt the tailbacks from Violet and Six were astronomical. She often took Violet and Third, eighth level, on her way to Krysta's as Violet's eighth level was one of the few routes that crossed with Cyan. So what would normally be a twenty minute trip on Violet and then a ten minute one up Cyan, was going to be.... troublesome. If she wanted to get there at any point in time before the Second Solar Pass, she was going to have to get the rail to Mauve and Eight, walk through the _Darks_, catch the next rail from Cerise and Ten, get off at Sixteen on the eighteenth level, and walk along Sixteen until she hit Cyan.

Slag. Why'd it have to be Violet? This was going to take forever. And held a high chance of her getting into some manner of fight depending on how stirred up the incident had made the scum-levels of the Darks. Most weren't stupid or desperate enough to tangle with a human despite being one of the smaller sapients running around, they were generally considered one of the toughest beings to be found and even void-born humans held tight to their ancestral strength born of evolving on a Death World where, until they proved otherwise, it was considered to have gravity too dense to allow for atmospheric breach. Their bodies were stronger, their muscles denser, and coming from a Death World their bodies handled trauma to degrees that would have killed other sapients. For many, a human was not a foe to be trifled with, for others, they were a challenge not to be ignored, and normally Shai was happy to make an awful lot of lippi stealing the Coin-Chips from those morons, but that didn't mean she wanted to deal with it right now. So she tinted her breather to black so they couldn't see her face, clipped her hardlight tablet to her forearm, and stomped into her boots as she headed into the airlock, activating the system check as she closed and sealed her apartment behind her.

Personal environmental seals were all green-light, airlock door to her apartment was green-light, she was good to vent atmosphere. She locked it, and then input her pin to start atmospheric venting, grimacing and reaching out to grip the handles built into the tiny porch for this very purpose as she felt it pull strangely on her clothing and helmet – the venting in her porch was a bit bit and miss, she didn't want to get her foot yanked into a vent again, the bruising had been a royal pain. The green-light above the exit door turned to blue, indicating there was no atmosphere, and then turned to orange as the thick atmospheric soup preferred by her patrons began to fill the small porch. Many planet born humans complained of how strange it was to stand in a vacuum, but to Shai it was normal, she didn't really have the words to describe the feeling in all honesty.

Kit'aani station was owned by a clan of Ffurushff called the Lightweavers, in particular Krysta'aniie, Blue Matriarch and Fourth Wife of Black Patriarch Vinso'krrak. They were a rather powerful clan all things considered, having feelers in a great many pies all across the galaxy. Vinso'krrak had a particular taste in wives that lent itself well to furthering his – well, the closest human term for it was 'mafia empire'.

Shai worked for Krysta directly as her favourite pit fighter and personal enforcer. It was dirty work but it paid well, and Krysta was more tolerable than other beings Shai had worked for in the past. She had actually been working under Krysta for years now, ever since she first stepped off a frigate and walked straight into the Darks to find a pit-fight to earn back the lippi she just spent on transport. The Blue Matriarch was carrying her first egg-sack and touring through her recently purchased station's slums and saw her beat a Sable into a bloody smear. She approached Shai then and there with an offer she would have been out of her mind to refuse. Still, despite being one of the few humans that _hadn't_ been trafficked in, Shai was still considered 'owned' by Krysta. And, in an unofficial capacity, she _kind_ of was. In that Krysta was remarkably like an Earth cat and if you existed within her space for longer than five minutes and she liked you well enough, you belonged to her. Usually Shai didn't mind. It kept things nice and simple and easy. But every now and again, it just ended up being more trouble than it was worth (usually where Vinso was involved), and she had to _remind_ people she was no one's pet Hume.

Stepping out, she was almost immediately buffeted by beings on the walkways, they were practically crammed. With the crash on Violet and all the lane shut-downs, those who couldn't afford speeders of their own were walking like her, but _unlike_ her, they were sticking to the upper levels. She went to the stairs, and headed down into the Darks.

It was a risk to go without carrying any gang-signs. She walked quickly, knowing better than to linger on the scum level where scavengers and troublemakers were looking to make quick lippi. Things were generally calmer further down where the families and the refugees were just trying to get on with their lives. She knew quite a few nice folk down there, some really good eateries, and an Atenka who did _incredible_ tattoos using bio-luminescent ink that was even safe for _human_ flesh.

Kit'aani Station was an old mining platform that had been joined with two other platforms in the area and given a face-lift. There were fifteen towers along its length, and the core of it was generally called the Darks because none of the light from the YUEI-00014's twin suns could reach down that far, it was a slum, and of course, the highest points of the towers with the most light were reserved for those that Krysta favoured. Shai could have had an apartment _in_ Cyan, her personal block, but she preferred being out of the way in the Blacks, scarcely a level above the Darks. Everything was industrial metal, dirty and oily over the years down in the darks, there were a surprisingly large amount of greenery this far down, shielded from the majority of the valorens in the upper levels it was one of the only places where plant-life grew naturally. It was typically the Ffurushff favoured corals and mosses, but that was unsurprising given how the atmosphere was keyed to them directly. On the upper levels, things were cleaner, but there was no plant-life outside shielded buildings and cultivated garden spaces. The further up you went in the towers, the cleaner and sleeker things became, the more ornate and beautiful they became too. Shai regretted ever introducing Krysta to old earth stained glass windows and Art Nouveau design. It was fucking everywhere.

She was quick to move through and head back up to the light-levels where she could catch the next transport. Station rails were _huge_ multi-platform buildings that went the length of the tower stopping at every block to let off and accept passengers. She had to run a few times to catch the right rails, and get to the right floors, but she was only a little late upon reaching Cyan and Eighteen – Krysta's personal block.

[“_Well, don't you look menacing today,_”] a male voice pinged through on her local audio channel. She flicked her eyes up to the HUD in the top left corner of her visor and twitched a small smile to see Kyro's UID location listed on the second floor lounge. She looked up as she stepped into the shimmering white and crystalline building to see him sprawled out like a lazy cat upon the decorative white railings over the receptionist's desk on the second floor. Wearing a feather patterned iridescent pearl coloured body glove, draping silver, white, and blue gauzy silks with all manner of lacy bejewelled frippery, more jewellery than could be reasonably worn by mortals and still look tasteful, and a stylised white and shimmering mother of pearl helmet with a hardlight visor and decorations modelled to look like glittering ffurushff wings, worn with the environmental seal around his jaw instead of his neck – allowing his long butter blond hair to spill down to his waist in artful tumbling waves.

He looked stunningly ethereal. And expensive as shit.

Just how Krysta liked it.

“Slut,” she greeted with a smirk as she headed for the ramp to the second floor.

[“_For you? Always,_”] he agreed with a laugh. [“_But babe, not today. Her Majesty wants you upstairs,_”] he lamented, the pout in his tone clear.

Alarmed, she hesitated on the ramp at the mouth of the lounge where she could see him rolling over to face her.

Krysta was a lazy decadent hedonist ninety eight percent of the time – except where money, revenge, and her husband were involved. If she were demanding Shai's presence immediately upon her entering into the _building_, where usually she was more than willing to allow her time to visit Kyro and the other humans she owned and employed.... She didn't like this. She didn't like what it insinuated.

“Red or gold alert?” she asked shortly even as she turned on heel and headed for the private lifts in the heart of the building.

[“_Mmm, neither,_”] Kyro told her lazily.

She frowned in confusion as she reached the lift and began to key in her pin and her Randomised Security Authorisation token code to open the doors. A moment later the huge decorative wall to the lift bay slid open, the fan-like blue and gold wall reliefs folding down into the floor with soft snik's of metal like one of her dancing fans.

She took a single step forward and felt a soft weight bump into her side, and hands latch onto her arm.

Kyro grinned up at her when she looked at him.

Little shit knew he was lovely, and knew she wasn't going to brush him off when they were off to see the Boss lady. Krysta favoured him to ridiculous levels, _both_ of them really if she gave it thought. But for different reasons. Kyro really _was_ her pet hume in this instance, and that was how he preferred it. Kyro's story was tragic, but identical to many others. He was a gene-manipulated plaything, bred for the pleasure industry, grown in a test-tube. Legally, he wasn't human. Legally, he wasn't even a sapient. Under the United Assembly of Star Systems, his very existence was illegal, so there would be no help for him should he go looking for it. Instead, he did one better. He _bought_ his own freedom and then voluntarily sold himself to Krysta specifically – and all he would say to that was that he was what he was, and all he wanted was the chance to choose his owner. Strange boy, but that was his choice, and at the time of buying his freedom, he was free to make that decision himself.

“She seemed happy though,” he informed her as they made their way into the lift, dropping his head down to rest on her shoulder. They were roughly the same height, but Kyro was literally half her weight with doll-like thin limbs that she could snap like twigs if she so wished. Stood side by side without their suits, they were like night and day. She was a fighter, and had an athletic build of solid muscle, short dark hair, dark eyes, she had scars here and there, Kyro was pale and slender and unblemished. Soft and smooth where she was hard and rough. The only imperfection he had, if you could even call it that because honestly she thought it was cute, was that he had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose.

Shai hummed noncommittally as she keyed in her second set of codes, ignoring Kyro as he took her hand and pointedly put it around his waist before cuddling up against her side. And then taking a moment to grasp at her breast and give it an interested fondle.

“Could you not?” she demanded in annoyance, brushing his hand away as the lift walls changed colour to indicate the acceptance of her code.

“Later then, when we're alone,” he agreed in a purr, rubbing up against her.

She sighed, “Yes, fine, later.” They could fuck when she was finished with whatever it was that Krysta wanted.

He snorted in amusement, “No need to sound so enthusiastic, babe, I might think you want me or something,” he teased as the lift walls rippled with pink and orange light before the doors opened.

“I'll fuck you into the mattress _later_ when I know for certain I'm not out of a job,” she snapped, striding out of the lift and forcing him to follow after her, the overly decorative fucking peacock that he was.

“As if Krysta would ever get rid of you,” he scoffed.

Shai didn't answer. It was a stupid thought, she knew it was. Intellectually anyway. But her _parents_ had sold her to what were basically stim smugglers, barely a step up from pirates and flesh traders and she _knew_ how lucky she'd been on that front – her mother had chosen the ship out at random while dragging her through the space port before the blockades were due to go down.

If her own mother would ditch her....

Kyro gave her arm a squeeze, “Oh, Starshine....”

She bristled. He only ever called her that when he felt sorry for her. She shook him off and stomped across the decorative stones that littered the beautiful water garden. Not that it was actually water given how it glowed cyan blue. Like most ffurushff, Krysta loved beautiful and expensive things, the majority of their species had an almost magpie like addiction to shiny things and a strict social hierarchy built around meritocracy amongst the females. The males escaped the power plays and jockeying purely because of the gender radio amongst their species sitting at an uncomfortable 5:1 in favour of the females. Almost all of Krysta's rooms were water-gardens and full of shimmering and glittering things. For a species without auditory processors, her patron was absolutely obsessed with wind-chimes and waterfeatures.

She didn't wait for Kyro to try and catch up as she stepped into Krysta's personal rooms, she pulled the fan-door up behind her, closing it again.

Krysta herself was perched upon the hanging frame that passed for a chair in her species, her delicately patterned blue and white wings arched out behind her in a display of pleasure and pride as she scrolled through a hardlight computer screen in front of her. So she was in a good mood at least.

Ffurushff were roughly ten feet in height from head to tail-tip, not including their wings. They were huge insectoid like creatures that looked remarkably like a mixture of earth butterflies, dragonflies, and some of the prettier species of seaslug. They possessed eight limbs, all of which had three fingers and a 'thumb', and had eight wings to match, each in varying sizes. Females were typically always brightly coloured and vividly patterned, males typically had more subdued shades, but that wasn't always the case. In Ffurushff terms, Krysta was a particularly stunning example of a female. Her wings were bright clear snowy white, her patterns were elegant and eye-catching china blue and indigo, and the colours bled delicately into one another evenly without blotching. Her chest was wide and heavy and her arms were positioned well to support her egg-sack, and her carapace was smooth and gleaming. And yet she was still only Vinso'Krrak's fourth wife.

She must have felt the vibrations of the door through the air because a moment later Krysta looked up and her wings rippled with colour happily, she pushed herself up from the frame and twirled a greeting, dancing with excitement, almost too fast for the universal translator as her wings flashed and moved.

//Shai, my lovely, this is wonderful! We have good news!// she fluttered, flashing her colours and fins like a flitting. //An official invitation has been forwarded to us from the Hive! We have been offered a slot in their Culling Blood Tournament!!//

Shai blinked, feeling a bomb go off in the pit of her stomach.

She had to sit as the implications sank in. Krysta still fluttering in excitement, a general wordless display of happiness as she danced through the air.

The Hive had invited them to the Culling Blood Tournament. Invited _Krysta's_ branch of the Lightweaver Clan specifically by forwarding the invite to her _here_ instead of to her husband. And there was no _way_ that no one on the Hive was unaware of how ffurushff hierarchy operated – sending _Krysta_ the invitation was a deliberate enforcement of how _she_ handled her business, not of the Clan. This had the potential to throw the social hierarchy throughout the clan into a civil war. Almost all of Vinso'Krrak's wives and children would go fucking feral with the upset of power throughout the family and take it as an opportunity to try and off the competition, vie for power, for influence, to right past wrongs, or get revenge. This had the potential to get _very_ nasty.

More personally, as Krysta's top fighter and personal enforcer, Shai would undoubtedly be fighting in the Tournament. Her and Duo, her Ipp-tex.

If she won..... she would be set for life....

It just might cost her her life.

But damn..... what a way to go.

“When?” she distantly heard her own voice asking.

//Next year.//

To get to the Hive? So soon?

She got to her feet, already working to shove the complicated messy implications and politics and headaches to one side in order to focus on something she could handle in the here and now. “Then we need to start preparing now,” she declared. At a rough estimate, even using official shipping lanes and warp gates, it would take eight _months_ to get to the Hive from their current system.

Krysta paused and then twirled in agreement. //Yes. We have only a vorn to prepare. There is too much to be done. Summon my staff and daughters,// she commanded before returning to perch on her frame, the computer flashing back up into sight, her wings practically vibrating with restless energy.

A vorn. That was.... two earth standard months. Roughly.

They had ten months to get to the Hive.

Two months to get their affairs in order, decide who was going to be in charge of Kit'aani and YUEI-00014 in the meanwhile, get all of their people arranged, bribe the officials they needed to, arrange transport, accommodations, get together the cash, get their fighters prepped, ensure that all the appropriate perimeters are met for a multi-sapient stasis trip, and on top of that.... she would need to inform her husband.

Yes. She was right.

There was far too much to be done.

They had best get started.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first draft XDD 
> 
> It is subject to change as I get it all polished up ready for publication. I just find myself struggling to get shit done without encouragement so, yeah, please give me comments and kudos, anything will do XDDD


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